Is there an accepted way to establish a Forward direction for a linear feature regardless of the ordering of the points used to store the feature?

An example would come from Roadway Design in the United States and other countries in which "stationing" is determined to be positive if the end point is east of the begin point. (For ties in the easting value, I suppose we compare the northing value.)

I am looking for a generalized solution, though, which would be able to handle linear features which happen to have identical begin and end points.

This question is not specific to any particular software application. I am looking for industry or academic standards. Now to answer your question, sometimes I use Arc, sometimes I use GRASS. One day I hope to use QGIS. But when I will need it is when I complete development my own Cogo system: github.com/PaulSchrum/CogoPy
– philologonApr 20 '17 at 0:51